I wish social media services had a trial function at the user level. I'd like to be able to follow someone on a 'try it and see' basis. Ideally that would be the default behaviour. After a week or a month I'd be prompted – "have you enjoyed following this person?" – and given a choice about whether to continue to follow them. That way I wouldn't have ended up following 400 people on Twitter and finding my stream boring and overwhelming. My stream would consist of the core group of people who I enjoy following. Same idea with Tumblr, Instagram, etc.
I think this would be good for everyone. Particularly for businesses and artists – people looking to use social media to grow their audience – since they wouldn't simply be looking to acquire new followers but to actively keep them. Everyone would need to be more entertaining, insightful, and interesting.
Published on May 18, 2013 10:02